Aqoondarro Waa U Nacab Jacayl (1974) by Faarax M. J. Cawl: Ignorance is the Enemy of Love

The book

Aqoondarro Waa U Nacab Jacayl ("Ignorance is the enemy of love") is a novel by Faarax Maxamed Jaamac Cawl. It was first published in Somali in 1974 and was soon taken over by the Ministry of Culture and Higher Education (The Modern Novel; WardheerNews). It appeared soon after the government adopted the Latin script for Somali in October 1972, and is often described as the first full-length novel published in the language (WardheerNews; Britannica). The background is on The Somali language is written, 1972.

The English translation, Ignorance is the Enemy of Love, by the Somali language scholar B. W. Andrzejewski, who also wrote its introduction, was published by Zed Press in London in 1982 (104 pages). A second English edition appeared in 2012 (Internet Archive record; WardheerNews).

The story

The novel is set at the start of the twentieth century and is based on a true story handed down orally. Calimaax and Cawrala, both gifted poets, meet on a ship bound for Aden. When the ship runs into a storm, Calimaax saves Cawrala and they fall in love (The Modern Novel).

Calimaax is committed to driving the British and Italian colonial forces out of the country, and joins the Dervishes. The novel also shows how Somalis saw the Europeans, including a comic episode about the explorer Richard Burton. In a Dervish raid against the British in 1916, Calimaax is badly wounded and left for dead. Believing him dead, Cawrala's father marries her to another man. Calimaax recovers, but by the time he hurries to her it is too late (The Modern Novel). The history behind the story is on The Dervish movement, 1899 to 1920.

Poetry runs through the book, especially Cawrala's, showing its roots in oral tradition. See Somali poetry.

Reception

• About ten thousand copies sold quickly in Mogadishu, and the ministry took over its publication because of its value to the national literacy campaign (WardheerNews).
• Reviewing the English edition in 2013, Ismail Ali Ismail called its text "lucid, beautifully composed and easily readable" (WardheerNews).

The author

Faarax Cawl studied at the Trade School in Hargeisa and, from 1959 to 1962, at Chelsea College of Aeronautical and Automobile Engineering in London on a government scholarship. He served as a colonel in the Somali Police, leading its transport department, and from 1979 was general manager of the National Transport Agency. He wrote two further novels, including Dhibbanaha aan dhalan. He died in Mogadishu in 1991, at the start of the civil war (WardheerNews).

Where to read it

• English edition, lending copy: Internet Archive
• In a library: WorldCat

Related pages

• Books in the Somali language
• Shabeelnaagood, Hassan Sheikh Mumin